


but you break and fold

by deadjolras



Series: sober spins [2]
Category: Fontania
Genre: Drunk AU, F/M, Giaan's A Stepford Smiler, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Quinn's Not Having It, everybody has a lot of feelings, getting over people is hard, it's complicated - Freeform, there's shouting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 06:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5323277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadjolras/pseuds/deadjolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he needs her to see that a break-up isn't solved by running away to another country, so he tells himself: "it has to be done"</p>
            </blockquote>





	but you break and fold

**Author's Note:**

> THINGS QUINN SAID WHEN GIAAN WAS CRYING

Giaan says she’s fine when she leaves, but Quinn knows she’s lying so he follows her.

Outside, the air is cold and it slices against his skin. (He rather enjoys it – lifts his face and _inhales_ ).  The sounds of the party die down the farther he strays away from it, and the night gets darker, offers to envelop him.

He finds her alone at the bus stop, sitting on the bench with her head down, her thin fingers absently pulling at loose strands of fabric.  Giaan looks small. It makes Quinn gnash his teeth.

“Why’d you leave?”, he asks – _barks_.

Giaan starts, but she doesn’t look at him. His blood simmers. “I said I was tired.”

He’d heard her say it, too – watched her subtly lean into Eileen for show, listened to her voice, soft and low.  “Bullshit.”

A bus arrives and stops. Somebody gets off and walks away. The word continues to ring in his ears, like they can’t believe he’s said it at all, and Giaan hasn’t moved. Quinn finally tears his gaze away from her, focuses it on the bus gradually disappearing in the distance until it blends with the many other dots of faraway traffic.

She talks at last: “You don’t know anything.” Giaan sounds as small as she looks, tone conveying resignation rather than confrontation.

It is very much the opposite of his. “I know you’re lying!” Now _that_ makes her look at him. Quinn swallows and clenches his clammy hands into fists – unclenches them – clenches them again. “You’re lying to yourself,” he adds, perhaps unnecessarily.

(He hates the way his breath hitches when he does.)

“ _You don’t know anything_ ,” she repeats, slower this time. Quinn realises that this is what her fury is like: ice rather than fire, and a thousand times more effective than a raised voice. Each word sinks into his bones and spreads poison in his veins.

He returns her glare. “Admit it.”

“What…?”

“Admit it!”

“Quinn, I don’t know what you’re -!”

“Admit you’re still in love with him!”

He takes a step forward when he shouts this. He regrets it instantly. Some distances, Quinn knows, aren’t meant to be closed. This was one of them. “You’re still in love with him,” he says again and pretends not to notice how his voice shakes.

 Still, although he’s finally quieted down, Quinn is no less harsh. He tells himself: this has to be done.

 And he takes it back the moment he sees Giaan stave in into herself. (He’s never claimed to be brave nor has he ever pretended to be strong).

Watching Giaan right now, he thinks, is like watching the sea before a tsunami strikes. Something inside her retreats, rushes away from the surface, escaping him and, perhaps, herself until it’s reached a dead-end and the only way that remains is forward. He should’ve been expecting this, maybe, but being powerless, helpless, against the oncoming tide that is Giaan Elmes very nearly breaks him. “I’m sorry,” she tells him, and he believes her because she wouldn’t be _crying_ if she didn’t mean it. (He almost doesn’t want her to mean it: maybe it’d hurt less that way.)

 “I know I shouldn’t - I’m sorry,” she says again, choking on a broken sob, “I’m sorry.” Giaan brings her hands to wipe away her tears, but they won’t stop and that frustrates her more. Her movements go from frantic and embarrassed to furious.

Quinn can’t move. He wonders if he would help even if he could. “I don’t get it,” he admits.

She sobs again.

“Why?”

“Please don’t ask me – not that – not you –“

He presses on regardless ( _this has to be done_ ):  “Why are you still in love with him?”

“Stop, Quinn… Please.” Quinn wishes he could. The sound that escapes her throat next, the sight of her cringing away – from him, from herself, from the inevitable question and its painful answer -, that would’ve been enough to break anyone’s resolve. Who is he to ask these questions anyway? Who is he to make her confront a truth _neither_ of them wants to face?

Still.

This has to be done.

“Why are you still in love with _him_ –“ he raises his voice again, draws courage from its volume, tunes out the guilt and the humiliation and the reluctance and the envy and the _jealousy_ churning in his stomach “– when you could just fall in love with _me_!?”   

He doesn’t know whether this makes her stop crying altogether or sob all the harder: truthfully, he can’t hear anything over the blood roaring in his ears. “He fucked up,” Quinn continues, voice unexpectedly firm. Somehow, he’s not exhausted. Somehow, his heart is still in its place, very much drumming painfully against his ribcage, when he could’ve sworn he’d just ripped it out himself and thrown it at her feet. He wants to understand. He wants Giaan to understand as well. “He – He hurt you –“

“Don’t do this, please.”

“He hurt you!”

“Quinn!”

“He ruined everything, but _I chose you_!”

Her last cry is quiet, pitiful, but, quite clearly, the very last. It sounded almost like she hadn’t meant to utter it at all, as if it had been stuck in her throat and nothing more – so long, good riddance, may you never return. Giaan buries her face in her hands.

“I _chose_ you. In spite of everything, I -”, he breaks off. His voice fails him ( _about time!_ ) and that’s okay because he doesn’t have the energy or the desire to continue. Quinn wants to hide. Quinn wants to cry (apparently, it’s contagious).  

He settles for turning his head away from her instead.

He can feel his face burning. He pretends it’s because of the cold.

Finally, Giaan speaks: “You shouldn’t have.”

He knows she means that too. It tears him in half. “I didn’t _have_ to do anything.”

“I’m sorry.” She still doesn’t understand. Quinn doesn’t have the strength to explain.

“I…” This kind of thing, Freddie babbled at him once, is not a matter of choice. “Don’t be. I’m sorry too.”

They fall silent.

“For what it’s worth…” he begins and then falters. “I didn’t pick _you_ to fall in love with.” He certainly didn’t _want_ time to freeze when she smiled at him (honestly, it was embarrassing to get caught staring). Giaan looks up at him, mostly surprised but also a little bit hurt. “But I -,” he clears his throat “- I _chose_ to stay by your side regardless. That was my decision and mine alone and there’s nothing you can do or say to take it away from me.”

Giaan nods, staring at him wide-eyed, but she doesn’t say anything.

(Her cheeks are red. After all, it’s a very cold night.)

Eventually, her bus arrives. Not another word is spoken between the two of them. Quinn waits for her to board it and, afterwards, for it to disappear in the distance. He leaves too, later.

Somehow, he still wants to cry.


End file.
